Gandhi’s specs

There was something truly poignant about that Mahatma Gandhi sale yesterday in New York.

His glasses, a pair of old sandals, his watch and a brass bowl and plate were sold at auction for an extraordinary £1,27 million ($1.8million).

Gandhi, let’s remember, tried to live a modest life not tied down by material possessions. He was also the inventor of that impressively brave form of protest, non-violent resistance who, like so many idealists, died by assassination.

Now, in these cynical days, it is quite possible that someone will come along and say that Gandhi wasn’t as perfect in his idealism as we might think but he was, if nothing else, a powerful visual symbol of his own teachings.

The little man who mixed with expensively suited politicians in his loin cloth and sandals is an image we will all remember.

We will remember and shift slightly awkwardly in our own modest or not so modest trappings of modern fashion.

The money, that £1.27 million ($1.8million) will change hands between two extremely rich idealists.

It will be paid by Vijay Mallya, the millionaire owner of Kingfisher Beer – mmmmm, I used to drink that in Indian restaurants – and banked by the owner of these strangely moving objects, Richard Otis, a Hollywood documentary film-maker.

Richard Otis is a self-professed Gandhi follower who had tried to donate the items to the Indian government if it would agree to increase its spending on the poor by $50million. The government said no, well no surprize there I guess, and so the sandals and everything went to auction.

Mr. Otis has now regretted the hasty rush to sale and tried to stop it but, contracts being contracts, he was told that he could not do that. Instead he has gone on a 23 day fast in honour of Gandhi and, maybe to appease his conscience and retrieve his public image.

I wonder what will happen to all that money – it would be wonderful if Richard Otis donates it to an Indian charity. Let’s hope so.

Vijay Mallya, according to his “spokesman” was bidding “for his country” – bidding so enthusiastically that the price went up from the estimated $30,000 to the final gigantic figure.

The spokesman added that “I am sure all Indians will be pleased that these Gandhi items will be coming home.”

I wonder if they will be coming home to Mr. Mallya’s house or to a more public home in an Indian museum.

It would be so heartening if, at least once, we could read about rich men doing something noble with their wealth.

We have had (Sir) Fred Goodwin, the failed chief of the Royal Bank of Scotland sitting on his immoral hoard of pension money, those other failed bankers who are about to receive their totally undeserved bonuses and then those heartless embezzling entrepreneurs who will soon be, let’s hope, paying for their crimes in front of an American court.

Maybe, Mahatma Gandhi’s sandals will become a symbol, not only of a great and brave man, but also of a change in the behaviour of the very rich who can all so well afford to spread some of their money around a bit.

Now, if some of those bankers want to share some of that money, I have a pair of old sandals and some glasses very similar to those Gandhi ones – my model was John Lennon, of course, who also ended his life at the hands of a fanatic – I kept the glasses as a memento of a golden time.

I would be wearing them today if I hadn’t broken them one day in an inebriated spinning experiment on top of a tower in a park in Bristol.

The sandals? Well, maybe I am no Mahatma Gandhi but there is still a bit more wear in them.

Anyone want to start the bidding?

Whilst we are on the subject of non-violent resistence, what should I do about the cat that sat on my daffodils?

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon: